England · Restored
Pembridge Castle
Pembridge Castle (originally Newland Castle) is a late 12th–early 13th-century medieval castle near Welsh Newton in Herefordshire, England, listed Grade I and remaining in private ownership. Built of red/brown sandstone with a surrounding moat, it has a prominent round keep and drum-towered gatehouse and underwent notable early 20th-century restoration.
First raised
1208
Its prime
1600
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1600
What Pembridge Castle looked like in its prime.
Compact rectilinear castle set on a moated 36 by 27 metre plot of land, built of reddish-brown sandstone ashlar and rubble. The forecourt is dominated by a cruciform gatehouse with two large, cylindrical drum towers flanking a central arched carriageway; crenellated parapets run along the curtain walls and towers. Narrow vertical slit windows and paired lancet-style openings puncture the stone; a separate four-storey round tower stands at the western corner as the earliest keep. Low rural fields surround the moat.
Its story
The story of Pembridge Castle.
Pembridge Castle, originally Newland Castle, was most likely constructed by Matilda de St Valery sometime before 1208, a border castle a mile northwest of Welsh Newton and a full 25 miles from the village of Pembridge itself. Founded by 1208, it was the seat of the Pembridge family, then of the Wakes and the Mortimers in the 14th and 15th centuries.
In September 1602 the castle was granted to David Baker of the Inner Temple, a lawyer from Abergavenny, who left England to become a Catholic priest in 1605. Saint John Kemble, the English Catholic priest and martyr, lived at the castle for many years before his arrest and execution in 1679; the 16th-century chapel was ruined in 1644 during the English Civil War.
The moated castle of ashlar, sandstone and rubble keeps its four-storey round tower, thought the earliest part, the keep, on the western corner, within a curtain wall 1.4 metres thick. Much reconstruction was undertaken in the early 20th century by a Dr Hedley Bartlett, and the Grade I listed castle remains in private ownership.
Step inside
8 places to explore in 1600.
The record describes 8 distinct spots at Pembridge Castle, including 3 interiors: gate passage and carriageway, interior of the western round keep, castle chapel interior. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Recreate Pembridge Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1600, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
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Clans who held Pembridge Castle.
The families that held Pembridge Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Pembridge
Seat of the Pembridge family from its founding by 1208.
Wake
Held by the Wake family in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Mortimer
Held by the Mortimer family in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Nearby
